


Love Me Like Black Magic

by Gorgeous Nerd (gorgeousnerd)



Category: Little Mix (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/F, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8920555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeousnerd/pseuds/Gorgeous%20Nerd
Summary: When Leigh-Anne meets three other girls stood up at a dance, they decide to form a coven. 
Falling in love is a nice fringe benefit.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blindmadness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindmadness/gifts).



> This is mostly a Black Magic AU (with a bit of Love Me Like You, if the title wasn't enough of a giveaway). Thank you to everyone who helped!
> 
> Happy Yuletide, blindmadness :D

Leigh-Anne had a lot of expectations about going to university—or college, as the other students called it—in Los Angeles. She'd expected warm weather and the beach. She'd expecting shopping...well, not being able to afford stuff she wanted, but being close enough to nice shops that the occasional purchase was a possibility. And, of course, she expected studying.

What she didn't expect was to get asked to prom.

It wasn't _actually_ prom. All the sororities at her uni took turns throwing parties, and one had decided to go with a prom theme. It seemed ridiculous—hadn't most people in a sorority gone to their high school prom?—but Leigh-Anne wasn't going to be invited, so whatever. She wasn't in a sorority. She didn't want to be in a sorority.

And yet, she ended up at the gym they'd rented for the dance in a posh frock with flowers on her wrist anyway.

Life was funny sometimes.

-

There were other students from England going to the school. Leigh-Anne had seen a few around. The only one she'd ever talked to was a girl named Jade in her physics class, and that was only because she'd asked for a pencil once. Leigh-Anne had noted how adorable she was before going back to taking notes.

But the night of the not-really prom, Leigh-Anne got to talk to Jade extensively, and a couple other girls called Perrie and Jesy. It turned out Leigh-Anne's date had a type, and that was lonely foreign girls that he could stand up in favour of a blonde sorority girl.

"I thought he really cared," Jesy said, drooping on the benches over by the side as she watched him dance with his actual date. "He was so sweet."

"Sweet enough to pass up four girls at once." That was Jade, who looked sad, but not in any particular mood to admit to anything but anger. "I'm just going to go home. Shouldn't've come in the first place."

Leigh-Anne got to her feet and held her hand out for the fourth girl in the group, Perrie.

"I'm staying," Leigh-Anne said. "And I'm dancing. How about you?"

Perrie had been staring off at nothing, but she came back to herself and looked pleasantly surprised.

"All right," Perrie said, and took her hand.

-

They traded Snapchat usernames that night, and within the week, they were meeting in Perrie's dorm room, on Jade's suggestion.

"I have an idea," she'd said in their group snap. "But I want to talk about it face-to-face."

It was pretty obvious where it was going when Jade sat them down with candles and a sparkling book.

"Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner," Jade said, twirling her finger and letting sparks go. "My mum's family always loved their covens."

"I never thought magic would work here," Perrie said. "In the States, I mean. I always lit candles at home without thinking about it, but I didn't think it was worth trying."

Leigh-Anne nodded in agreement. "But what kind of magic were you thinking about?"

Jade met her gaze and smiled softly. Leigh-Anne smiled back.

"I was thinking a group project. Something to keep our minds off things."

Everyone agreed quickly, talking happily over each other and splitting into pairs and talking as a group again. Leigh-Anne couldn't deny the natural chemistry was there.

But they couldn't seem to agree on what exactly they would do.

"Vengeance," Jesy said immediately, with relish.

Perrie winced. "That could get messy. What about glamours? I always loved those as a kid. Look."

She dragged her hands over her hair and turned it purple. It was beautiful, and wonderfully showy. Leigh-Anne hadn't ever seen the appeal of the natural magic available back home—it always seemed like more trouble than it was worth, with bad spells rebounding on people often—but a quick hair change? She could get into that.

But Jade shook her head. "That's better individual magic for a lot of reasons. I was thinking a love spell."

Jesy and Perrie gasped with delight, but Leigh-Anne shook her head.

"Compelling someone to love you? That's a terrible thing to do. Cruel."

Jesy looked a little wounded. "It isn't that kind of love spell. Look."

She opened the sparkling book to a marked page, and Leigh-Anne leaned over and read aloud.

"'Love awareness spell. See where you want love in your life.'" The spell gave a glow to people that you were into. That didn't sound terrible. "Shouldn't I already know that?"

Jade shrugged. "I thought we could start small. Save necromancy for a few months down the road."

Perrie started cackling immediately. "I always wanted an undead cat for a pet!"

Leigh-Anne laughed. "Okay, I'm in. Not for the necromancy."

Everyone else agreed, and they went to work.

-

The love awareness spell was easy to cast between the four of them. The tricky part was that the people using it had to forget they cast it for it to work.

Three days passed without anything happening for anyone because, the second anyone would start to forget, someone would text the group chat asking if anything had happened yet. On day four, when they were meeting up for lunch, Perrie had a man who looked like an actor escorting her in. She kissed him on the cheek in farewell and sat at the table looking very satisfied.

When no one spoke, Perrie said, "I think it's just a fling, if that helps? Incredible sex, but nothing long-lasting."

That broke the ice. Everyone cackled and started talking.

Understandably, the excitement over Perrie's fling meant it was another two weeks before anything happened, and it was to Jesy, who appeared in the physics class they all happened to share with her hair mussed and her lipstick smudged.

She wrote a note to everyone saying "been on three dates, likely not a fling", with "not" underlined three times.

-

Coven meetings were a weekly occurrence, shifting between their dorm rooms. Three meetings in, Perrie and Jesy compared notes on the love awareness spell.

"It was an aura, and blue, like he had the sky circled around him," Perrie said happily, her head in her hands.

Jesy blinked. "Mine was more of an outline? Like a neon pink outline. Almost as if he was cut out of the world and put on top of it again."

"So it isn't anything you could easily miss?" Jade asked. She sounded kind of glum.

"No," Perrie and Jesy said at the same time.

"Couldn't miss it if I tried," Jesy said. "Maybe that's why it's an actual spell? To keep you from looking away."

Leigh-Anne sighed and flopped on her pillow. At least she wasn't alone in the singles club.

She stayed behind after Jesy and Perrie left for the evening. It was Jade's room, which Leigh-Anne hadn't seen well before. She had a framed print on her wall of a bunch of Disney princesses. It looked watercolour.

"Disney fan?" Leigh-Anne asked, nodding at it.

"Yeah. Went to Paris every chance I could back home. I'm a bit too poor to go to Disneyland here, though." Jade sighed. "Disney films are so romantic. Why is that so hard to find?"

"I wouldn't want Disney romance in real life," Leigh-Anne said. "There aren't many black girls. Do like Tiana, though."

Jade laughed quietly. "I suppose you're right, but...what about Enchanted? I'd swap a princess time in the real world for time with a sexy prince."

Leigh-Anne considered the idea. It wouldn't be so bad to be animated for a bit. "Could do."

-

The next physics class, there just happened to be a set of Cinderella mouse ears from Disneyland in Jade's usual spot. Maybe neither Leigh-Anne nor Jade could afford the park right now, but Leigh-Anne could order online.

Jade's face when she saw them made it worth every single penny.

-

Perrie came to the next coven meeting looking extremely exhausted. She flopped on Leigh-Anne's bed.

"I think the spell wore off," she said. "And I'm glad. I've had so much sex over the last week, I wasn't sure I'd be able to go to another lecture."

"Poor baby," Jesy said sarcastically. It sounded like things with her boyfriend were going well, but even she looked a bit fed up.

Leigh-Anne and Jade just exchanged looks and cracked smiles. Jade was wearing her mouse ears and had managed to coordinate the rest of her outfit in a similar blue.

"How will she survive?" Jade said, mock frowning.

Perrie sighed loudly, but even she ended up laughing at herself a bit. And then they all worked on a lighting spell just because.

-

Finals week was brutal. Leigh-Anne had studied quite a bit, but her Macbook wasn't working right, and she'd spilt tea on her textbook, and basically she was in a rotten mood when she made it to physics class for the end-of-term exam.

Where a pair of Dior sunglasses were waiting for her.

She gasped and looked at a too-innocent Jade, who watched her silently. "You know how much these cost?"

"Don't worry, I didn't sell any of my possession or anything. A girl in my dorm needed extra cash. She had three pairs, and it barely cost me more than a nice lunch."

Which was still more than Leigh-Anne spent on the ears, but at least Jade wasn't going to be broke.

"Thank you," she said, as genuinely as she could manage.

Jade nodded in reply, looking pleased.

There wasn't more time to talk more before the test started, but that was lucky because Leigh-Anne couldn't think of anything to say.

-

The coven's last meeting before they all flew home for the summer was at the beach. Mostly because, why not? But partially because Jade had found a spell about shoring up your power, and why practise in a room when there was time to do it outside?

They each took an element. Leigh-Anne took water, Jade was air, Perrie was fire, and Jesy was earth. It meant Leigh-Anne had a bottle of water, Jade a fan, Perrie a candle, and Jesy a bit of dirt in a jar.

They closed their eyes and focused on their element and their connections to each other. Leigh-Anne almost thought she could see the links. Maybe she would with more time.

Once done, they broke the circle and went to their umbrellas and towels. Leigh-Anne thought a bit of time in the water sounded nice. Her bikini was definitely more fashion-oriented, but there was no reason for it to stop her.

But before she could take her cover-up off, Jade asked, "Would you take a walk with me?"

"Sure. Fancy ice cream or something?"

"Mmm, maybe in a bit. Just felt like stretching my legs."

Leigh-Anne nodded and followed Jade off the sand to the pavement. The surf was still loud, even from a distance. She felt very secure in her choice of element.

Jade had her fan from earlier as well, and while she wasn't using it hard, she was definitely using it.

"I didn't just want to take a walk," she said. "I just wanted to ask you something away from the others."

"Oh?"

"I want to visit everyone this summer. But I was kind of hoping we could visit each other first, just you and me."

Leigh-Anne was pleased, but a bit confused. Why would Jade want to see her first? And alone? They were all more powerful as a group, and...

And Jade was _glowing_.

At first, Leigh-Anne thought it was the sun. It looked like a halo, almost, but nothing that wouldn't happen if the sun wasn't at a specific point in the sky. But the sun was high...and on the completely wrong side of Jade for that to happen.

"You're glowing," she blurted.

Jade's eyes widened. "Oh thank God."

Leigh-Anne raised an eyebrow.

"I saw you glow when I got you the sunglasses. But I didn't have a chance to ask you if you saw anything because of the test, and then I figured you hadn't and I didn't want to spoil it, and—"

Leigh-Anne took her hand. It was gentle, but Jade still startled.

"Mind if I..." She leaned forward a bit.

"Oh! Oh, yes." Jade's eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned closer.

Their first kiss was warm, and the air smelled of the sea.

"Finally!" Jesy yelled from a distance.


End file.
